1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and apparatus for deciding the in-focus position of an imaging lens.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an example of the prior art (see the specification of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-146405), a skin-tone area contained in the image of a subject is detected and the skin-tone area detected is adopted as a focusing area.
Even in a case where a skin-tone area is detected, however, it is difficult to detect the skin-tone area accurately when the very subject image in which the skin tone is to be detected is extremely out of focus. Consequently, there are occasions where focusing cannot be achieved accurately even when a skin-tone area is adopted as a focusing area. Similarly, even in a case where a target is detected solely from contrast (density) information without using color information, it is difficult to detect the target accurately in an extremely out-of-focus state.